“The capacity for rational foresight makes one a natural ruler and natural master, and the capacity to execute this foresight by bodily labor makes another a subject and a natural slave; that is why the interests of the master and slave coincide.” I chose this paragraph because it exemplifies the origin of Aristotle’s fallen into error. He uses false logic to justify this behavior and commits a fallacy of reasoning. A person who engages in slavery is hardly a rational being and the there is nothing natural about owning another person. In Aristotle’s time such a practice was so common it may have seemed natural but this is no excuse for a man who prided himself on his inquiry of virtue. These interests of these two people, master and slave, do not coincide what so ever. Unless the slave in question lived some terrible life before becoming a slave I imagine that this person would find their interests hardly coincide with that of their owner. Further more Aristotle is wrong to reason that the slave is fit to bodily labor any more than master and given their experience at doing such work I would say that the slave would be better suited to instructing others on how to do the job. Aristotle makes errors in his reasoning because of his prejudice for foreigners and his false belief that Greeks are somehow innately superior to all other beings.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 19:46:20 +0000
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